By Chip Letzgus
Greetings, fans and followers of “The Kara DioGuardi Show”—
Here’s tonight’s recap:
Ryan Seacrest asked Kara why she was constantly snuggling up to Simon Cowell, and Kara coyly retorted that it was Simon who was always leaning against her. Later, she told Casey James that she was almost back to having a crush on him but wasn’t quite there yet. Then she had an emotional breakdown because she has never had a child, which required her to bury her tear-stained face in Simon’s armpit for comfort.
In between, some guys sang some songs.
See you next week!
What? You thought this was supposed to be a review of a singing competition called American Idol? Yeah, well, that’s what I had thought I was going to be watching. But since the beginning of performance episodes the series has gradually morphed into a reality show documenting the thwarted desires and shattered dreams of a desperate pre-menopausal songwriter in the cold and brutal fantasyland between Heaven and Hell called Hollywood—and tonight it reached a whole new level of Karazy.
Bring back Paula Abdul.
At least when Paula slipped into sedative-fueled gibberish, her ramblings were about the contestants. “This is it for you!” she wept to Melinda Doolittle. “I want to squish your head off and dangle you from my rearview mirror,” she threatened David Archuleta. “Your second song wasn’t so good,” she predicted to Jason Castro, who had only sung one song.
With Kara, on the other hand, it’s all about herself—her attraction to Casey, her incessant touching of Simon, her take on how to interpret songs that she co-wrote herself, and tonight an epic meltdown because she could empathize with a song about a wife and mother because, uh, she’s not a mother.
Prediction: She won’t be a wife for much longer, either. I am convinced Kara DioGuano and her husband will be in divorce proceedings by December 31, 2010. I have no inside information on which to base this prediction, only this: The woman is alunatic.
Despite the distraction of the Kara sideshow, if you watched closely, you could see eight men sing songs on the “American Idol” stage tonight. Most of them weren’t very good, though, so if you missed them you weren’t missing much. To wit, in order of appearance:
LEE DEWYZE—Fireflies—4 / 88
Lee accompanied himself on the guitar and sang a song about the excitement of being young and not wanting to go to sleep at night because you might miss something, only the words I just typed were better lyrics than the actual lyrics to the song, which were poorly constructed and lame. Lee brought it to a pretty rockin’ climax and then slowed it down at the end; overall it was a good vocal performance of a mediocre song.
ALEX LAMBERT—Trouble—8 / 84
If Alex ever learns that he has a third opening in his face that he can sing through, not just the two nostrils, he might be pretty good. Nah. That still wouldn’t prevent him from choosing to sing songs about trouble doggin’ his soul and worry not leavin’ him alone, completely devoid of facial expression and utterly unbelievable when sung by someone who appears to be twelve years old. Ellen DeGeneres loved it. WTF.
TIM URBAN—Hallelujah—2 / 94
Well, I didn’t hold out much hope for this performance. In the two years since this song saved Jason Castro’s sorry dreadlocks during Season Seven, it has gone from obscure to done-to-death. Most recently, it was the climactic dirge at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, intoned by no less than k.d. lang in white tie and tails. But Tim Urban surprised me. Instead of adopting the usual mournful and whispery approach, he sang out, clear as a bell, in an interpretation that can be summed up in one word: earnest. This was his best performance to date. And while I was still distracted by all that hair, I liked his version better than Miss Chatelaine’s in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago. But then, Tim Urban looks like Bobby Sherman, and k.d. lang looks like Wayne Newton.
ANDREW GARCIA—Genie in a Bottle—6 / 86
Before the break, Ryan announced, “Next up, Andrew Garcia sings Christina Aguilera,” and I said, “I need a drink.” Look, it’s not like I’m against guys singing songs introduced by women. God knows I’ve sung everything in the Liza Minnelli songbook on karaoke night. It’s not like I’m even against a guy singing this song—it’s actually preferable, because when sung by a woman this lyric, all about how you’d better rub me if you want me to perform, sets the cause of feminism back a good 40 years. But there is something—something—about a tattooed guy from the ‘hood with his goofy oversized Robert Q. Lewis glasses and his illegitimate baby back in Moreno Valley that just requires alcohol to get through. Andrew, our fourth guitar-strummer in a row tonight, was on key and displayed the nice tone that his voice always has, but he still looked scared, like a kid in his first talent contest. Maybe the next time Ryan calls his name, Andrew should start drinking.
CASEY JAMES—You’ll Think of Me—3 / 89
Five guitar players in a row, and I’m starting to realize why “American Idol” banned the use of instruments by contestants for so many years. They’re crutches, they’re masks, and given the show’s time constraints and essential focus, they are superfluous. Casey’s guitar playing was pretty good, though, and with this song it cemented his image as a kind of folk-rock troubadour. This song has a meaty premise: A boyfriend takes some satisfaction in telling his ex as she’s moving out that, regardless of what she takes or leaves, he knows she’ll still think of him. But whether it was the fault of the arrangement, the melody, the lyric, or Casey’s interpretation, there just wasn’t much emotional or vocal range to this performance. Meh.
AARON KELLY—I’m Already There—5 / 87
Aaron didn’t have a guitar, but that didn’t stop him from playing an instrument—specifically the microphone, which as usual he tossed back and forth between his hands every time he came to the end of a line. Aaron gave us a nice restrained verse to this ooey-gooey country ballad about an absentee dad talking to his daughter on the celly, but instead of building it gradually, he hit the chorus and started wailing. The audience went nuts, of course, because that’s what they’ve been trained to do ever since Sam Harris was changing keys on “Star Search.” But Aaron missed an opportunity to have more of an emotional impact and instead took the easy way out.
I started to write a paragraph here about how Kara critiqued Aaron’s performance, confusing “third person” and “first person,” and that Aaron was quite right in his rebuttal to her, but you know what? There is more Kara to come and I am just not up to describing the subplot of her inability to grasp a lyric.
TODRICK HALL—Somebody to Love—7 / 85
A historic moment in “Idol” history.
Not because of Todrick’s outfit, a black diagonal-zippered jacket sporting both sequins and fuzz, although that was arresting.
Certainly not because of his singing—Todrick had a terrible time trying to reach the high notes at the very beginning, and hit the occasional flat note all the way through. And even when he was belting it out, his voice just wasn’t all that strong.
And not even because of his overall performance, which was animated, expressive and theatrical.
But because afterwards, when Simon said, “You know what you are? You’re a Broadway singer,” he followed it up with this: an admission that after a night of guys sitting on stools playing guitars, it was refreshing to see someone actually perform for the audience.
Simon calling someone “Broadway” and then finally admitting that an outsize Broadway-like performance can be preferable to a coffee-house folksinger performance? Historic.
MICHAEL LYNCHE—This Woman’s Work—1 / 95
The good: Michael was dressed in a black jacket and necktie that made him look like a preacher, which was entirely appropriate for a performance that seemed at times like it would be most at home at a revival. He strutted, he dipped, he worked that audience till I was ready to put money in the plate myself.
The better: A vocal that went from falsetto to basso-profundo and back again, a display of tremendous range and impressive control.
The bad: Michael doesn’t much care about getting all the consonants in, so it was a little difficult at times to discern what the hell he was actually singing about. I gather it was a slovenly husband’s tribute to his wife and baby-mama, who works all day and night and doesn’t get enough respect.
And the utterly insane: Kara afterwards, her face glistening, bleating out an aria of self-pity and TMI: “I don’t ever cry at these things, ever, but—but—maybe it’s because I’m a woman who doesn’t have a child—and I know your story and this was your tribute to your wife—and—” I couldn’t tell you the rest; I was picking my jaw up off the floor. I know Simon put his arm around her in an attempt to get her to shut the hell up, but that just brought forth more tears and gushing from Kara about her feelings: “See? He’s really nice, he’s really nice!”
Well, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you who I would like to see go home on Thursday night, but that’s not gonna happen. I put Alex and Todrick at the bottom of my ballot, but Todrick may have saved himself with his display of razzle-dazzle. If he’s not a goner, then Andrew Garcia is.
Kara, alas, will be back every week. Oy.
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